Just read a fantasy book about airships, pretty sure I told you about it "Retribution Falls". Doesn't focus entirely on them but remind me to lend it to you next time I come round.
Sounds like a cool game idea, could even make it more claustrophobic than most games by making it first person (maybe except for the communications guy). So you actually have to run around the ship and then interface with a particular control panel (hud)
scratch that the communications guy is first person too its just that when you interact with a console it can full screen or something. But what I mean is the engineer might have to run from one end of the ship to another to access a different maintenance console....hmm would it get dull running through the same scenery
I did think of giving the players very limited visibility - doing everything actually from the point of view of a member of the crew. However, I thought that then you are throwing away the opportunity to make the game a lot more fun with exciting visuals. This was the same reason that I didn't expand the audio-only idea into a whole game - humans enjoy seeing things (although occasional fog-bound regions are a definite possibility).
Instead, the idea I had was to make the various gun emplacements and shield points be on tracks that wrap around the ship's hull in 3D. So your point of view is not the whole ship, nor the inside of the bridge, but whatever your avatar can see from where their emplacement currently is. The emplacements' speed of movement would be something that could be upgraded, presumably. This means that players get to see what is going on, but their point of view is still limited - a particular direction, and perhaps only through the sights of their gun.
Whereas the communications office would have a much wider angle of vision and be able to look around the whole ship very quickly.
(And I haven't read Retribution Falls, but I'll give it a go if you recommend!)
Just read a fantasy book about airships, pretty sure I told you about it "Retribution Falls". Doesn't focus entirely on them but remind me to lend it to you next time I come round.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a cool game idea, could even make it more claustrophobic than most games by making it first person (maybe except for the communications guy). So you actually have to run around the ship and then interface with a particular control panel (hud)
scratch that the communications guy is first person too its just that when you interact with a console it can full screen or something. But what I mean is the engineer might have to run from one end of the ship to another to access a different maintenance console....hmm would it get dull running through the same scenery
ReplyDeleteI did think of giving the players very limited visibility - doing everything actually from the point of view of a member of the crew. However, I thought that then you are throwing away the opportunity to make the game a lot more fun with exciting visuals. This was the same reason that I didn't expand the audio-only idea into a whole game - humans enjoy seeing things (although occasional fog-bound regions are a definite possibility).
ReplyDeleteInstead, the idea I had was to make the various gun emplacements and shield points be on tracks that wrap around the ship's hull in 3D. So your point of view is not the whole ship, nor the inside of the bridge, but whatever your avatar can see from where their emplacement currently is. The emplacements' speed of movement would be something that could be upgraded, presumably. This means that players get to see what is going on, but their point of view is still limited - a particular direction, and perhaps only through the sights of their gun.
Whereas the communications office would have a much wider angle of vision and be able to look around the whole ship very quickly.
(And I haven't read Retribution Falls, but I'll give it a go if you recommend!)
ah ok that makes sense I do like shiny things (and normal things rather than darkness (well most of the time, darkness is nice mmmmm))
ReplyDeleteI'll bring over Retribution Falls next time I come around